certainty I must have left it in bad hands, since it has been stolen
from me." "I say the same," rejoined Cortado, "but there is a remedy for
every misfortune excepting death. The best thing your worship can do
now is to have patience, for after all it is God who has made us, and
after one day there comes another. If one hour gives us wealth, another
takes it away; but it may happen that the man who has stolen your purse
may in time repent, and may return it to your worship, with all the
interest due on the loan."

"The interest I will forgive him," exclaimed the Student; and Cortado
resumed:--"There are, besides, those letters of excommunication, the
Paulinas;[15] and there is also good diligence in seeking for the thief,
which is the mother of success. Of a truth, Sir, I would not willingly
be in the place of him who has stolen your purse; for if your worship
have received any of the sacred orders, I should feel as if I had been
guilty of some great crime--nay of sacrilege--in stealing from your
person."

[15] _Paulinas_ are the letters of excommunication despatched by the
ecclesiastical courts for the discovery of such things as are supposed
to be stolen or maliciously concealed.

"Most certainly the thief has committed a sacrilege," replied the
Student, in pitiable tones; "for although I am not in orders, but am
only a Sacristan of certain nuns, yet the money in my purse was the
third of the income due from a chapelry, which I had been commissioned
to receive by a priest, who is one of my friends, so that the purse
does, in fact, contain blessed and sacred money."

"Let him eat his sin with his bread," exclaimed Rincon at that moment;